Seed E-News

August 6, 2004

Statement By the AgTrade Coalition on the WTO Framework Agreement for the Doha Development Agenda
On August 4, 2004, the American Seed Trade Association joined other members of the AgTrade Coalition in issuing a statement following the conclusion of negotiations on the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda:

"The undersigned members of the AgTrade Coalition congratulate U.S. negotiators for a successful conclusion to the negotiations last week on a Framework Text that will allow the WTO Doha Development Agenda to move forward with important global trade reforms for U.S. agriculture.

American agriculture has long sought the reduction or elimination of such trade distorting measures as export subsidies and state trading entities, the harmonization of domestic trade distorting subsidies, and the expansion of access to highly restricted foreign markets. This agreement provides the basis for those objectives to be realized as the Doha Round talks proceed in the months ahead.

The importance to the U.S. food and agriculture sector of advancing this effort cannot be overstated because these WTO negotiations, with the inclusion of virtually all of our major trading partners and all of their various trade restrictions, provide opportunities for worldwide trade liberalization that no other forum or trade negotiating venue can offer. Difficult negotiations lie ahead, however, and the Ag Trade Coalition will continue to work with government officials to ensure that U.S. interests and concerns are addressed."

International Seed Testing Association
Member Governments of the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) have decided that the accreditation of a seed testing laboratory including authorization to issue ISTA Certificates is a purely technical task. Prior to the 27th ISTA Congress 2004 in Budapest, Hungary, to issue ISTA International Seed Lot Certificates a seed testing laboratory was required to successfully participate in the ISTA Proficiency Test Programme and in the ISTA Audit Programme (accreditation) and was obliged to have the approval of the national Designated Authority to issue ISTA International Seed Lot Certificates (authorization). At the 27th ISTA Congress 2004, a large majority of governments supported a constitution change proposal accepting the accreditation of a laboratory including the authorization to issue certificates as a purely technical task and consequently making an authorization through the Designated Authorities superfluous. Fully accredited U.S. laboratories are:

• Agri Seed Testing, Inc., Salem, Oregon (503-585-1440).
• Mid-West Seed Services, Inc., Brookings, SD (605-692-7611)
• National Tree Seed Laboratory USDA Forest Service (478-751-3555)
• Seed Regulatory and Testing Branch, AMS, USDA, Gastonia, NC (704-810-8877)

To read the entire press release, follow this link Authorization Rights.

In 1999 ISTA initiated an experiment on the accreditation and authorization of company seed testing laboratories, which expired at the end of June 2004. Prior to and during the 27th ISTA Congress in Budapest, Hungary, the final results of the experiment were presented to the ISTA membership and the ISTA member governments. From the data gained from the ISTA Proficiency Tests, the ISTA Audit Programme and monitoring data from some member countries, it could be concluded that in regards to the performance, there is no difference between company and non-company laboratories. To read the entire press release, follow this link Experiment.

Funds Available to Defray Costs of Organic Certification to Producers in 15 States
In Washington DC on August 4, 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that $1 million in federal funds is available to defray the cost of organic certification in the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The Agricultural Management Assistance Program, authorized by the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1524), will allocate funds to the 15 states in proportion to the number of organic producers in each state. The states, in turn, will reimburse each eligible producer for up to 75 percent of its organic certification costs, not to exceed $500. Each state is allowed to retain 4 percent of the total amount granted as an administration fee. In order to be eligible for reimbursement, an organic production operation must be located within one of the designated states, meet the USDA National Organic Standards for organic production, and have received certification or update of certification by a USDA-accredited certifying agent during the period of October 1, 2004, through September 30, 2005.

Applications by states for federal assistance and cooperative agreements must be requested from and submitted to: Robert Pooler, Agriculture Marketing Specialist, National Organic Program, USDA Stop 0268, Room 4008-S, 1400 Independence Ave. SW, Washington DC 20250-0264; tel. (202) 720-3252; fax (202) 205-7808; e-mail bob.pooler@usda.gov.

Additional information may be found at the National Organic Program's homepage: www.ams.usda.gov/nop.

National Organic Program — Accredited Certifying Agents A comprehensive list of the USDA Accredited Certifying Agents (ACAs) organized alphabetically by state for domestic ACAs and by country for foreign ACAs is now available by following this link List of Accredited Certifying Agents.

No GMO Crop Vote in North Dakota but Goes Ahead in California
North Dakota will not vote this year on regulating GM wheat, a leader of the "Go Slow with GMO Committee" said on Friday, shifting the election-year debate over genetically modified crops to California. Four California counties will vote on November 2, 2004 whether to ban planting of GMO seeds following in the steps of Mendocino County, north of San Francisco, which voted in March to bar farmers from growing GM crops — the first local prohibition of its kind. Activists have placed no-GMO measures on the fall ballot in Marin, Humboldt and Butte counties in northern California and San Luis Obispo County on the central coast. As a leading rice grower, Butte County will be the first major U.S. farming county to vote on the issue. For more on this story, follow this link GM Vote.

However, on August 4, 2004, Trinity County, CA, became the second county in the nation to ban the production of GM crops and animals. By a vote of 3-1, Trinity County Supervisors elected to ban GM crops and animals in an effort to "protect" Trinity's local economy and environment. Trinity County's ban goes into effect 30 days from its passage and makes it a misdemeanor to grow or raise genetically engineered plants and animals. However, its effect is more symbolic than practical since Trinity County ranked 51st out of 58 counties in farming output in 2002, according to the Trinity County Farm Bureau. Timber accounts for nearly all the agriculture revenue in the county, which has a population of 13,000 but no trees are being genetically engineered on a commercial scale.

APHIS Workshop on "Confinement of Genetically Engineered Crops During Field Testing"
USDA-APHIS BRS is planning a workshop, to be held September 13-15, 2004 at their Riverdale, MD Headquarters, to focus on confinement issues relative to PMP and PMIPs in corn, barley, rice, safflower, tobacco, as well as cotton. Mark Condon of the ASTA staff has agreed to serve on the workshop Steering Committee which will provide opinions on the organization of the Workshop as well as potential speakers, questions for discussion and references for a bibliography etc. The five main topics to be covered by the workshop are:

• Introduction to confinement and the principle of redundancy presented by APHIS
• Setting of isolation standards by AOSCA, scale and quality control measures (monitoring)
• Confinement analysis critical control points (CACCP) and quality control/monitoring
• Modeling tools
• Monitoring and sampling strategies to verify confinement (e.g., volunteers and geneflow)

To ensure that the seed industry has optimal participation in the workshop, ASTA members are encouraged to provide as soon as possible to Mark Condon at mcondon@amseed.org any recommendations for speakers, references, moderators, note takers, etc. More detailed information on this workshop will be provided to the ASTA membership in the coming months.

Indiana Seed Trade Association 2004 Corn Belt Seed Conference
Indiana Seed Trade Association will be holding its 2004 Corn Belt Seed Conference on November 11-12, 2004 at the Marriott East. Indianapolis. For more information, check out the ISTA web site at www.indianaseed.com.

Industry and People

ASTA member Strategic Diagnostics, Inc., based in Newark, DE announced on July 23, 2004 the commercialization of a new application for the TraitChek RUR Test Strip for bulk canola (also known as rapeseed) with detection limits of one Roundup Readyś (RUR) canola seed in 1000 non-RUR seeds (0.1%) in 5 minutes. Strategic Diagnostics, Inc. is a leading provider of analytical test kits for the agricultural, water quality and food testing markets. For more information, check out their web site at www.sdix.com.

ASTA member Dairyland Seed of West Bend, WI, recently announced the release of 18 new corn hybrids for the 2005 planting season which can be seen at research tours and field days through the Midwest this fall. For complete details of all Dairyland products, go to 2005 Dairyland Product Brochure.

ASTA member LG Seeds, Inc. of Elmwood, IL, announces the addition of 11 new corn hybrids, 13 new soybean varieties, and a new alfalfa variety for the 2004/2005 planting season. For more information, follow this link LG Seeds.

If you have any personnel changes, or other developments in your company, that you would like included in E-News, please send details to ppatterson@amseed.org.

Upcoming Events

November 7-8, 2004
ASTA 50th Farm & Lawn Seed Conference
Westin Crown Center
Kansas City, MO

December 8-10, 2004
ASTA 34th Soybean & 59th Corn & Sorghum Conferences and Seed Expo 2004
Hyatt Regency Chicago
Chicago, IL
Tel: 1-888.890.7333

January 22-25, 2005
ASTA 44th Vegetable & Flower Conference
Grand Hyatt San Francisco
San Francisco, CA.

June 19-22, 2005
122nd ASTA Annual Convention
Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Tower
Seattle, WA

July 7-14, 2006
Joint ASTA-CSTA Annual Convention
Hyatt Regency Chicago
Chicago, IL